Politics, parenting and other prattlings.

April 26, 2009

The Late Great State of [Free] America

It may be just a matter of weeks and Americans will wake up to find over two hundred years of liberty gone.

In the next week or so, Democrats will make sweeping changes to American health care using “budget reconciliation,” an arcane process that allows Congress to minimize debate, prevent amendments, and circumvent filibusters in the Senate, a top Republican budgeteer predicts. [...]

In this case, the Obama administration plans to abuse a process that was designed to save money, not create expansive and expensive new policies. The idea is to implement two controversial policies at the once — carbon caps, which will raise government revenues, and nationalized health care, which costs money. Ideally, the one policy allows the other one to pass. If Congress can estimate for itself $1.5 trillion dollars in future revenues from selling mandatory carbon credits, it can then pass legislation under reconciliation to spend all but $1 billion of that money on an entirely new health-care system.

“We've seen mission creep with reconciliation under both Republicans and Democrats — there's no question about that,” said [Rep. Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.)]. “But this takes mission creep to a whole new level. Now they're talking about the possible nationalization of 17 percent of our economy in health care, 8 percent of the economy in energy, and the largest tax increase in history — all through a process which will have between 35 and 105 total hours of debate between the House and the Senate . . . That's an enormous power grab.”

It must be about the power, because it has little to do with actually improving healthcare. The evidence against nationalized medicine is enormous and on-going. Canada

to contain rising costs, government-run health-care systems invariably restrict the health-care supply. Thus, at a time when Canada’s population was aging and needed more care, not less, cost-crunching bureaucrats had reduced the size of medical school classes, shuttered hospitals, and capped physician fees, resulting in hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for needed treatment—patients who suffered and, in some cases, died from the delays. [...]

Nor were the problems I identified unique to Canada—they characterized all government-run health-care systems. Consider the recent British controversy over a cancer patient who tried to get an appointment with a specialist, only to have it canceled—48 times. More than 1 million Britons must wait for some type of care, with 200,000 in line for longer than six months. A while back, I toured a public hospital in Washington, D.C., with Tim Evans, a senior fellow at the Centre for the New Europe. The hospital was dark and dingy, but Evans observed that it was cleaner than anything in his native England. In France, the supply of doctors is so limited that during an August 2003 heat wave—when many doctors were on vacation and hospitals were stretched beyond capacity—15,000 elderly citizens died. Across Europe, state-of-the-art drugs aren’t available. And so on.

'I was so numb I couldn't even cry': Daughter blasts 'Gestapo' social services as they bundle mother, 86, out of family home.

Will Americans miss their freedom? Will they even notice its passing or has the lurch into Euro-nihilism already gone too far?

That mentality goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible. [...]

The same self-absorption in whiling away life as pleasantly as possible explains why Europe has become a continent that no longer celebrates greatness. When life is a matter of whiling away the time, the concept of greatness is irritating and threatening. What explains Europe’s military impotence? I am surely simplifying, but this has to be part of it: If the purpose of life is to while away the time as pleasantly as possible, what can be worth dying for?

Something worth dying for? How old-fashioned! How reactionary! How bitter-clingy and ...

April 19, 2009

Sunday afternoon viewing

What CNN doesn't want you to see

CNN is so embarrassed by the performance of its "reporter" Susan Roesgen browbeating people at the Chicago Tea Party that it is trying to hunt down every clip and get it scrubbed from the Internet, including this one which is clearly a Fair Use issue which CNN is trying to abuse.

April 15, 2009

Tea Party, Rancho Cucamonga

At the intersection of Foothill Blvd. and Day Creek, slated for the 5-7pm window, organizer Laura Boatwright had only expected a couple hundred to turn out when she first started sending out the word in March.

Count provided by the Rancho Cucamonga PD just past 6:30 pm was 1,600.

And I would say that was an undercount.

People started arriving at 4 pm, gathering in the parking lot infront of the closed Circuit City. For alledgedly bitter, clingy, angry, scared rightwing extremists the mood was wonderfully relaxed and upbeat. People pointed to each others' handpainted signs, applauding the especially clever ones. Large flags abounded, American and "Don't Tread On Me." A little after 5 pm the crowd has grown considerably, and groups started circulating between the corners of the intersection. Five or six deep at the corners, the crowd then spread out in each direction almost a full block, one to two deep, down each side.

I spotted some media, but they seemed more interested in trying to get footage of "colorful" characters. Rancho PD undercounted the crowd, it will be interesting to see what numbers the media runs with ...

April 11, 2009

Disagree with the Left? Shut up.

April 01, 2009

'I kissed the President and I liked it.'

After completing my assigned duties as a volunteer at President Obama's townhall meeting yesterday, it was time for the program to begin, and I didn't have a seat. Most of the volunteers didn't have seats; we were expected to watch from alongside one wall, unless we got lucky and found an actual empty chair. But as I was trying to get out of the way of the Secret Service and a stray cameraman, a fella looked up and said, “Oh, do you need a seat? Let me move this stuff ...”

I was in the front row, to the right of the podium. The invocation was just ending ...

An introduction, and then the President was at the podium, 12 feet away from me. It took everything in my power not to drag out the Velcro and rubber bands to fling myself up there and stick to him. The crowd's reaction was instant, loud, compelling, infectious. Frantically and joyously clapping their hands, screaming his name. OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA! I happily joined in. We volunteers had been ... well, let's say “encouraged” to comport ourselves with dignity and composure. Yeah, yeah, screw that, it's O-time now, baby!

I was already stupid insane. When I wasn't taking pictures, I was watching every move he made. And then he took off his suit jacket. I have always had a thing for a well-constructed man's back in a crisp white shirt. Fine. Mmmm hmmm.

Dare you to read the rest over the jump ...

He spoke for about 10 minutes, then took questions from the audience. Without notes or a teleprompter, he answered them eloquently and with genuine emotion. If I hadn't been an Obama Mama before, I was now. I was completely enraptured and captivated. Someone called out, “I love you, Obama!” and he replied, “I love y'all, too,” chuckling as he said it. He used the entire stage, moving like a sleek lion, looking into the eyes of 3,000 people, resting on one, then another's face, his hand frequently stretched out as if to try and touch us, or the future.

And then he closed it down, put a stamp on it and mailed it to the world. We were on our feet, screaming for him, and I realized when he stepped down that he was going to walk around the perimeter of green fence rails surrounding the podium to shake hands and press some California flesh.

He started on the far side, away from me. The crowd caught on and the air in the building became thin and frantic. I began to panic a little; people were starting to rush forward, and I was right up front, but the Secret Service was ON it, looking over and ordering people to back up (nobody f***s with the Secret Service).

Denis, the gentleman who'd unknowingly saved me a seat, had my camera in his hand. I'd been telling him how much I wanted a picture with the President. Denis kept saying, “Just wait until I tell you. Stay right there and turn this way ...” For a few moments, I caught glimpses of the President coming down the line, people everywhere, all over and around him, like when you pour gravy on rice ~ he was saturated with hands, arms, bodies, the Secret Service like a safety net around his back and to the sides.

I looked up into the eyes of the President, and he looked down into mine. I laid my left hand on his bare right arm, thrust my right hand into his, and said, “I've been waiting for you since I was 12 years old. Thank you, Mr. President.” I stood as tall as my 5' could reach (he's 6 feet 90 or something), raised my head and leaned in, and he leaned down towards me. Suddenly, I kissed him on the cheek. I don't know why, I had nothing else to say that wouldn't take 20 minutes, I kissed him, and he didn't pull away. There was one of those kinda-sorta-almost shoulder hugs, not really touching, almost there, so I kissed him again, and again he didn't pull away. And damn, if I didn't kiss him again! He smiled down at me ~ he looked directly into my eyes ~ and said, simply, “Thank you.”

It was over. He moved on. My heart was in my head, I was upside down and right side up, all at the same time, in the rabbit hole on a bus being driven by Hunter S. Thompson and every last one of the Founding Fathers. I felt dizzy, yet more solid than I had in years. I wondered why I wasn't crying; I'll cry for a good shoe sale, but not now. There was no reason to cry; I'd had a “moment” with my President, and not just a moment, a FREAKIN' EXCELLENT GODDAMN MOMENT!

My new friend Denis returned my camera, and I looked anxiously ~ he'd done it! I had a picture with the President! Not full faces, but it's me, and it's him. (When did I get so old and jowly?)

“Mr. President.” The unbridled absolute joy of saying those words to the man for whom I'd worked so hard ~ I'm teary-eyed now, thinking back. We'd been told repeatedly that as volunteers at an official presidential event, we were representing the office of the President and that our behavior, our work, our actions would reflect upon that office. We weren't allowed to speak to the press; what if someone said something idiotic? It could be an embarrassment to the President.

I flashed on an old episode of “West Wing,” one in which Josiah Bartlett's presidency was in great peril, and a scene from that show suddenly became very real for me. The camera lingered on each of Bartlett's inner circle; one after the other, they repeated the words, “I serve at the pleasure of the President.”

Finally, I know what that means.

Yep, Beverly, we do know what you mean. Heh.

ALERT: And in case people think that Beverly Haut is a hoax, she was quoted in the OC Register last October

Barack Obama spent an estimated $4 million tonight a on a half-hour infomercial to try and close the deal for the presidency with the American people. And Orange County Democrats loved it.

"It was all I'd hope it would be and more," said Beverly Haut from Aliso Viejo, who describes herself as a retired paralegal and stand-up comedian. "I'm crying tears of joy and hope."